Foreigners

by Caryl Phillips

  Sadly, the doctor's ailments were such that it was no longer possible for him to roam the narrow, dirty, streets off the Strand, places that were shadowy and populated with a full tide of beggars, thieves, and abandoned women. These were dangerous passageways where violence was commonplace, but the doctor was long accustomed to observing and relishing this low life. Those irritating fellows, the night watchmen who bawled the hour in every dark street and alley of the city, were entirely familiar with his immense bulk and greeted him almost as one of their own. However, being a man dedicated to the night, the curtailment of his roaming proved a crushing blow to the doctor's spirit. Confined now to Bolt Court, loneliness was fast becoming a mortal enemy of the doctor, and he bestowed the name 'black dog' upon his deplorable bouts of melancholia. He appeared to have even lost his tendency to become excessively distracted at what he insisted were his witticisms, but what others often perceived to be nothing more than very small japes. No longer did the doctor relish his own jocularity and send forth loud and uninhibited peals of laughter, and life at Bolt Court was rapidly becoming miserable for residents and visitors alike. 'When I rise,' said the doctor in a letter to Mrs Thrale, 'my breakfast is solitary, the black dog waits to share it . . . Dinner with a sick woman you may venture to suppose not much better than solitary. After dinner what remains but to count the clock, and hope for that sleep which I can scarce expect. Night comes at last, and some hours of restlessness and confusion bring me again to a day of solitude. What shall exclude the black dog from a habitation like this?'

  Dr Johnson's only hope, as he understood it, was to attempt to avoid too much in the way of either seclusion or idleness, and so he was often discovered by his negro watering his tiny garden, or sitting at the stout mahogany table that decorated the drawing room and busily translating an obscure literary work, or writing long letters. However, even this pleasure was sometimes denied to him, for occasional inflammations of the good eye often made it impossible for him to read for days on end. At these moments, Francis' presence served to provide him with the opportunity of a few hours of much-needed conversation. And then, early one fateful morning, Francis arrived from his home on St John Street, Smithfield, and discovered his master sitting upright in his chair, which was not unusual for the doctor's bronchial asthma was so severe that he was generally afraid to lie flat at night. However, what made this occasion disturbing was the fact that when the loyal Francis entered, talking away as usual, there was no reply from his master. It was then that Francis noticed a handwritten note, and by this means he discovered that during the dead of night his master had become overwhelmed by confusion and giddiness, suffered a stroke, and subsequently lost the power of speech. Francis immediately summoned Dr Brocklesby, his master's physician and best friend, and over the course of the following two to three days, and after much dosing and blistering, Dr Johnson's speech eventually began to return to him.

  During this period, Dr Brocklesby spoke privately with Francis and shared with the servant his worry that, aside from the doctor's various physical afflictions, his master was suffering greatly from an oppressive loneliness that would only be resolved by his actively seeking the company of others. Conversing carefully with the occasional visitor over dishes of tea, or keeping the peace among his squabbling household servants, was never going to be enough to satisfy the intellect, or truly arrest the isolation, of the great man, whose appearance had, even by his own negligent standards, become wretched. These days the neck of his shirt and his breeches were habitually loose, his stockings were in need of being drawn up, he wore his shoes unbuckled, and his unpowdered wig was comically small and precariously balanced on his oversized head. There were very few 'clean shirt' days. Dr Brocklesby was sure that only by forcing the doctor back into society might things improve and so, during the harsh winter of 1783, his friends, myself among them, advanced the idea of establishing a small club in Essex Street, as a place where the doctor might enjoy congenial company and good conversation.

  We members of this new association were encouraged to dine three times a week and suffer a fine of three pence should we miss a gathering. The first meeting was held at the Essex Head Tavern and it attracted an enthusiastic crowd, but Dr Johnson was racked with asthma, and clearly struggling to breathe properly, so much so that he was too ill to return home unaided. However, the true drama of the occasion was the doctor's behaviour during the gathering. For some time now his friends had noticed that his severe humour and dogmatic manner seemed to intensify as his ailments took a firmer grip. At such moments he would become increasingly oppressive in conversation which caused many, including those who held him in the highest esteem, to grow first to fear, then to abhor, his unpolished and disagreeable irascibility. The doctor's favourite technique of argument was usually a flat denial of his opponent's statement, irrespective of how foolish this made him appear, followed by a grand assault of verbal brilliance such as one might expect from a man who had fixed the English language and succeeded in ridding it of cant. But sadly, these days those opponents whom he could not vanquish by force of his admittedly large intellect, he simply bullied into submission with a vile display of rudeness which seemed unrelated to any quantities of drink that he might have consumed. Thereafter, he often failed to make amends by raising a glass to the offended person's health or shaking his hand when he left the room, gestures which he had long been accustomed to offering.

  After the first meeting of the new association, it was nearly two months before the doctor was well enough to once again venture out of his house. During this period, Francis and his wife Betsy and the children moved their household into Bolt Court. This caused the doctor's friend, Sir John Hawkins, some consternation, but he temporarily set aside his prejudices and simply urged the great man to put his affairs in order and immediately prepare a will. However, Dr Johnson was fearful that such a course of action might suggest a willingness to cease struggling with life, and as such he baulked at taking a step that, in his rational mind, he knew to be both sensible and natural. The very thought of his own dissolution and eventual death was intolerable to him, but the one issue that he admitted must be swiftly resolved was the matter of what would happen to Francis, who had served him faithfully for almost thirty-five years, and about whose future he agonised. The doctor had little confidence in Francis' powers of survival, for he understood his servant's weaknesses and he had laboured hard to both accommodate these faults and at the same time protect the man. One afternoon the doctor asked his friend and physician, Dr Brocklesby, what might be a proper annuity to bequeath a highly regarded servant, and he was told that fifty pounds a year might be considered a generous amount. Dr Johnson listened carefully, and then decided upon seventy pounds a year for Francis, whom he determined would be his principal legatee. He instructed Sir John Hawkins to draw up the draft of the will and to include the generous legacy to Francis, however, Sir John Hawkins left blanks where, in good time, he imagined Dr Johnson would insert the names of other legatees, but the doctor appeared to have no desire to do such a thing. Instead he named two more executors, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr William Scott, and charged them and Sir John Hawkins with the task of disbursing sums to a few others after his death, and then he reiterated his desire to give 'the rest of the aforesaid sums of money and property, together with my books, plate, and household furniture . . . to the use of Francis Barber, my manservant, a negro . . .'

  Sadly, Dr Johnson's recurrent battles with asthma continued to prevent him from attending the Essex Street Club as regularly as he wished. In fact, as he became increasingly aware of the reality of his situation, Dr Johnson decided to travel to Lichfield and revisit his youth, but while there his ailments caused him to sleep long and often, and his suffering seemed only to increase. And then the doctor received news of the death of Miss Williams, who had, for some time, been languishing in helpless misery, and this loss left him desolate. He returned to London where he yearned for pleasant company and conversation, but most of
his time was spent in a deep, but agitated, slumber that was inevitably punctuated by raucous breathing and the occasional yelp of pain. Francis continued to attend upon him daily, but as his master's condition worsened the negro made sure that he was also available for long nightly vigils in the sickroom in case the doctor's pain became intolerable. On the morning of Monday 13 December, Francis noted that the slumbering doctor's breathing had become difficult, and then his master awoke suddenly with a series of convulsive movements that alarmed Francis. Apparently the pain in his master's legs was so unbearable that the doctor snatched up a pair of scissors and plunged them deep into his calves causing jagged wounds. This afforded the doctor some relief, but also occasioned a loss of blood which startled Francis and Mrs Desmoulins, who had recently arrived at the house to offer what help she could. In fact, she had another reason for attending upon her beloved Dr Johnson on this day, for she wished to receive his blessings, which he was happy to give. Once the bleeding had stopped, the doctor slowly turned to Mrs Desmoulins and whispered, 'God bless you,' in a trembling voice. Francis waited and watched as Mrs Desmoulins fought bravely to hold back her tears, and then she rushed quickly from the room.

  Later that same day the ailing Dr Johnson received a visit from a Miss Morris, who was the child of a friend of his. The young woman's unexpected arrival alarmed Francis, but he escorted her from the street door up the stairs to Dr Johnson's chamber, where he asked her to wait. He entered and informed his master that a young woman was here who claimed to be the daughter of a friend, and that she had asked permission to see him so that she might receive his blessings. Dr Johnson smiled weakly, which his negro servant took as a sign that he should usher this Miss Morris into the room, which he did. The doctor turned in the bed and looked carefully at the girl before pronouncing, 'God bless you, my dear.' With this said he turned away and Francis marshalled Miss Morris from the room. Soon after, Francis, together with Mrs Desmoulins, returned to Dr Johnson's chamber where they both realised that the doctor's breathing had become even more laboured, but there was nothing that they could do to alleviate his discomfort. Shortly after seven o'clock in the evening, both Francis and Mrs Desmoulins noticed that the painful breathing had ceased and so they quickly left their respective chairs and went to the bed where they discovered that the great Englishman was dead.

  The woman poured her visitor more tea and then coughed loudly without resorting to covering her mouth. It was clear that, in common with her husband's late master, this woman had no passion for clean linen or immersing herself in cold water. The story of her time in Lichfield with her negro husband was now clearly uppermost in her mind, but it was apparent that this was not a joyful tale. If, as seemed to be the case, Francis Barber was still alive then what I most desired was an introduction to the man so that I might discover for myself why fortune had not smiled upon him since the death of his master. It was an indisputable fact that Dr Johnson had provided handsomely for Francis, although Sir John Hawkins, among many others, had complained loudly of the imprudence of Dr Johnson leaving money to a negro. If the rumours of Barber's fall from grace, and his foolishly squandering the assets bequeathed to him, and thereby betraying the generosity of England's greatest literary mind, proved to be true then this would serve only to confirm Hawkins' estimation of Dr Johnson's folly.

  The woman coughed.

  'Lichfield has turned out to be a disappointment for me and for Frank, but I expect you can see that, right?'

  I said nothing but again I looked at the squalor that surrounded me.

  'After a couple of years trying to make a living in London, we came up here to Lichfield. Then we discovered that my Frank had borrowed so much money from Mr Hawkins that not only was the annuity no more, but Frank was told that the sum of money that provided for it was all spent. Mr Hawkins claimed to have settled his account with my Frank. My husband's health was never that good, then we had difficulties with the children. It was hard to find anybody who would give us work or even welcome us. Three years ago we moved out here to Burntwood, and we used the last of the money to buy this cottage, but Frank's sadness drove him to drink more and so we had to start to let go of the doctor's pieces. We don't have anything left. My Frank, he used to take pleasure in a spot of fishing or cultivating a few potatoes, but even that's gone now and look where he's landed. The Stafford Infirmary, which isn't a place for a decent man.'

  Again the woman coughed, and I deemed it an appropriate moment to ask the question that was now sitting somewhat impatiently on my tongue.

  'Would it be possible for me to see your husband?' Mrs Barber looked blankly at me, but said nothing. I continued in my efforts to engage the uncultured creature. 'I understand that Mr Barber's health may not be perfect, but an audience, however brief, would assist me greatly with my biographical sketch.' I paused, unsure whether the dull woman was sensible of my words. 'I would appreciate your assistance, if at all possible.'

  After what appeared to be an age, the woman nodded briefly and said she would conduct me to the infirmary, but she asked if first it might interest me to see the schoolroom. Clearly this is what she desired, and so I rose to my feet and followed both her and the mongrel through a plain door and into a darkened room. Books and papers were strewn all about, but it was unclear exactly how many pupils still considered this to be a place of learning that they might visit on a daily basis. Mrs Barber drew back the curtains to let a little light into the room, but the illumination served only to highlight the squalor of the place. Just as I was beginning to feel that precious time was being wasted on this gloomy ruin, the child began to cry. Gathering the gamine about her skirt, Mrs Barber announced that it was some months now since her Frank had been forced by ill-health to abandon teaching, but she attempted to attend to those pupils who still wished to learn, although she did confess that her own learning was somewhat rudimentary. As we made ready to leave, I cast my eyes around the dismal chamber and concluded that this place had probably not been used as a schoolroom, or as anything else, for the greater part of a year, and the morose English woman's claims to be, in the absence of her husband, a replacement teacher of some description were undoubtedly exaggerated.

  I soon discovered the Stafford Workhouse Infirmary to be a place of great misery, as opposed to a haven of rest and recovery for those who were temporarily ailing. As the carriage came slowly to a halt by the tall oak doors, I noticed that the infirmary boasted a stony black façade, and the grounds all about were entirely treeless, which created a most despondent atmosphere. Mrs Barber and her child led the way into the vaulted interior, and they moved quickly along a seemingly endless corridor as though hurrying to an appointment. Then the grey-haired woman stopped outside of a rough-hewn door that was partially ajar, but through which I was able to spy a long row of tightly packed and fully occupied beds.

  'Frank's in there at the end. The last bed but one. We can wait here until you've finished your talking with him.'

  I was somewhat surprised by Betsy Barber's reluctance to enter the cheerless chamber and introduce me to her husband, but I imagined that perhaps there was some rift between them that I was not sensible of. Or perhaps she was simply fearful of once again encountering her husband in such a pitiful situation. On entering the miserable place, I decided that it was quite probably the latter reason, for I could not imagine any wife who would be content to gaze upon a loved one who had been reduced to such lamentable circumstances. Most of the patients appeared to be quietly suffering from grave maladies that would soon carry them off, while one or two thrashed about as though trying to free themselves from imaginary leashes, and as they gyrated they howled like beasts. I could see no sign of a physician, but I was soon accosted by an attendant who offered me a sponge soaked in vinegar which I immediately pressed to my nostrils for protection. Thereafter, I made my way to the bed as directed and was somewhat alarmed to see the tortuously aged face of a man I had not seen for sixteen years. Blacky's eyes were fastened tightly shut, but on
ce I sat on the edge of the cot – there being no other place for me to deposit myself – he soon opened his peepers and stared up at me as though unable to properly discern with whom he had an audience.

  'Do you remember me, Mr Barber?' As soon as I asked this question I felt foolish, for why should the negro commit to memory knowledge of a man he had not encountered for nearly two decades? It was a somewhat presumptuous enquiry on my part and I regretted that I had allowed it to pass my lips, but to his great credit Francis Barber did not seem at all troubled by my impertinence.

  'Forgive me,' he whispered, 'but my mind is weak.' He paused and blinked vigorously, as though trying to regard me anew. I could see now that the man was toothless, and his decrepitude was far advanced. 'Sir, I am sorry that you should discover me in this state of disrepair.'

  I assured him that there was no reason for him to apologise, and that it was I who should be begging his forgiveness for this unannounced intrusion. I explained that it was the woman he called 'wife' who had suggested that I might visit, and who had subsequently conveyed me to this place, and he simply nodded as though he had already guessed that this must be the case. Again his eyes closed, and I looked around at the other patients in the room, most of whom, like this negro, appeared to be idling close to death. And then I turned my attention back to Francis who, even as I sat with him, appeared to be already experiencing life racing quickly out of his body. In fact, his short, shallow breaths suggested that he was merely lingering at the door to the next world. A few moments passed, and then Dr Johnson's negro once more opened his eyes and a thin smile crept across his black face.

  'I wonder,' he said 'if perhaps I have disappointed my master. Have you come to this place to accuse me of this crime?' The negro paused and gathered his thoughts. 'My master placed a great deal of faith in me that I might resist temptation, do you know this? Towards the end he often called me to his bedside and asked me to pray with him. He never failed to point out appropriate passages in the scriptures, for he feared that my nature was too weak and that I might misuse all that he was about to bestow upon me. He feared that some men might take advantage of my character and so we prayed together that I would find strength and not succumb to my fondness for drink and frivolity. My master and myself, we often prayed together, the two of us, long into the night.' The negro paused and gasped for breath. I instinctively reached down and clasped his black hand, and eventually his breathing subsided, but I chose not to release this poor man's fingers. 'I lack dignity. Even coming to Lichfield was a fulfilment of my master's wishes.' I looked at Johnson's dishevelled negro, but I could find no words. 'My master provided me with many advantages yet I still find myself in these circumstances. I sincerely wish that he had used me differently.' The negro looked nervously all about himself. 'Perhaps,' he continued, 'I would have been better served committing to a life at sea, or returning to my native Jamaica. Perhaps it would have been more profitable for me to have established for myself the limits of my abilities rather than having them blurred by kindness, dependence, and my own indolence. And when presented with real liberty—' He stopped abruptly, then sighed. 'Well, look upon me, sir. Look liberty in the face. What see you?' Suddenly, with this question, his eyes temporarily brightened, but then without waiting for my answer they fell shut again, like a falling curtain, and this time it was clear that they would not reopen again this day. At least not for me. Dr Johnson's negro had withdrawn from the world, and I was left alone with his pitiful words ringing loudly in my ears. Surely liberty had never before appeared to any man in such a state of mournful ruination. It was true, this negro had most likely been destroyed by the unnatural good fortune of many years of keeping company with those of a superior rank, thus depriving him of any real understanding of his own true status in the world. I felt that I could answer his final question with some confidence, even though he would remain insensible to my thoughts on the matter. Yes, the black should have left our country and journeyed back to Jamaica or to Africa with Mr Sharp's expedition. In fact, all ebony personages should do so for I was now convinced that English air is clearly not suitable for negro lungs and soon reduces these creatures to a state of childish helplessness. In this sad, wretched moment, I had received confirmation of the wisdom of my own intention to invest in the Province of Freedom, and thereby help prevent this spectacle of negro abasement from becoming endemic in our land.